

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 







































































































































































































' 




































/ 

















t 


s 




































In the evening we were carried home 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 


DEC 13 iy04 

Oopyrife-nt Entry 
AJ2CS / 3 /?oi{ 
CLASS ^ XXc. Not 


L 


/ O 3 l 

COHY B. 


AT 


Copyrighted, 1904, 


BY 

INDA BARTON HAYS. 


All Rights Reserved. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Secessia Virginia 1 

Two War-Time Christmas Dolls 37 

The King’s Whirr 65 


A Mountain Blossom 


78 


ILLUSTRATIONS, 

/ 

In the evening we were carried home .. Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Curiously watching the servants and soldiers 
loading army wagons with our household fur- 
niture 3- 

The next moment I had impulsively thrown in- 
side a little bunch of red and yellow chrysan- 
themums 11 / 

“Colonel Wychoff,” she said, “I suppose these 

are the children!” 25^ 

The sharp ejaculation, “Halt!” rang out 58 

A tall, stately man, whom they called “General,” 

stood sternly by 62 < 

Heard the shouting and scrouched behind the big 
willow 71/ 









SECESSIA VIRGINIA. 


A STORY OF LIBBY PRISON. 


T HOSE were strange times in Rich- 
mond when this incident, related 
after so many years by one of its 
juvenile heroines, occurred. 
Coming at nearly the close of the war, it 
had been preceded, as little Betty Landon 
thought, by three years of pleasant, emo- 
tional changes without the monotony of 
childhood’s usual pastimes. Even the sor- 
rows she witnessed were not as griefs famil- 
iar to other children, and rendered her far 
older in ways and feelings than the decade 
of young people which went before or fol- 
lowed after. 

The first queer happening that startled 
John Landon’s little daughter came one 


2 


Secessia Virginia. 


dark and drizzly night, in the early summer 
of 1862, when, by order of General Lee, the 
Landons were moved from their home place 
to a safer position “inside the lines.” 

“Burleigh,” the home of the Landons, near 
the Chickahominv river, was an old-fash- 
ioned country mansion, built of brick. Six 
stuccoed columns guarded the front en- 
trance, and five dormer windows blinked 
across its wide roof and looked down a long 
cedar lane to a big gate on the main road. 

The Confederates, after several days’ 
hard fighting, had been reinforced by Jack- 
son — silent as a sphvnx, brave as a lion, and 
who mystified not only the enemy but his 
own men by the celerity of his movements — 
and on the commanding site occupied by 
“Burleigh” it was decided to give battle. 

“I suppose I must have thought The war’ 
a normal state of existence,” said Betty 
Landon, recalling these reminiscences to 
her small nieces, a score of years later, “for 
I do not clearly remember when it began. 






























. 








































* 

' 






































Curiously watching the servants and soldiers loading 
army wagons with our household furniture. 


3 


Secessia Virginia. 

“My earliest vivid impression is of the 
night we left our dear old home. I recollect 
being suddenly awakened, and curiously 
watching the servants and soldiers loading 
army wagons with our household furniture. 
I, with the other children, was in a fever of 
excitement at the chaotic confusion, the 
appearance of gayly dressed officers, and of 
coming from the fairy dreams of a child’s 
trundle bed to the glaring lights and panto- 
mimic movements of armed men anticipating 
battle. 

“The sound of booming cannon, and the 
quick, sharp repetition of minie guns were 
already familiar to our childish ears, and 
the name of ‘Yankee* was a bugbear that 
struck terror to the stoutest child-heart 
among us. 

“But here was all the paraphernalia of 
war ; with thousands of bronzed, grey-coated 
soldiers whose hot gun barrels from one 
day’s fight were scarce to be cooled for 
another day’s conflict; with lines of men 


4 Secessia Virginia. 

throwing up intrenchments, and torchlights 
shining weirdly on grim, determined faces, 
as if they dug one long grave for the dead 
which strewed the battlefields from Cold 
Harbor to Mechanicsville. 

“It impresses me even now that there was 
but little noise. Aides hurried here and 
there; all the bustle and animation of field 
duty in the face of precipitate battle was 
there, but it remains on my memory as the 
changing figures of a kaleidoscope. 

“There were lights on the hill where we 
had played the day before, and nearer camp- 
fires showing the tented yard, and around 
the fence a background of stacked and shin- 
ing guns. Perhaps because it touched a 
child’s sense of the ridiculous, one incident 
of that night I have never forgotten. I re- 
member going with my brother to the low, 
log house, when Uncle Bob went for the 
geese, and seeing that functionary tie their 
red-webbed feet together, and balance them 
behind him on an old black mule as he 


Secessia Virginia. 5 

trotted away. And I have often wondered,” 
Aunt Betty laughed in telling it, “why those 
fowls were not beheaded; for if Rome was 
once saved by the cackling of geese, that 
wing of the Confederate army was surely 
endangered by the same tumult. 

“We were tumbled at last, though, in the 
old family coach and followed Uncle Bob 
down the long cedar lane. Beyond the gate 
my mother got out; and Mammy, who care- 
fully held the baby, had to hold me back 
also, for I vigorously kicked and cried to fol- 
low her. 

“ ‘You’ Mar come back, chile,’ said Mam- 
my, trying to quiet me; ‘she fergit suthin’.’ 

“My mother did come back and wept as if 
with a breaking heart; while I sobbed in 
sympathy and Mammy offered ineffectual 
comfort. If it was hope mother went to look 
for, it was a futile search, for I learned 
afterward that she had gone to the trenches 
to bid my father ‘good bye’ once more, — my 
father who had been in all the Peninsular 


6 


Secessia Virginia. 

campaign, until tlie chances of war with 
cruel irony brought him to his own farm to 
be left for danger, perhaps death, while his 
family fled for safety — he knew not where! 

“But we found refuge and remained there 
until we could get through to Kichmond, 
where we were soon domiciled in half of my 
uncle’s house on Churchhill. 

“No more favored spot could have been 
found in the city to familiarize a child with 
the surroundings of ‘war times.’ In fact, 
we seemed to be in the centre of a military 
position. 

“Below was the river ; far down its sinuous 
windings we saw the coming and going of 
boats and the landing of troops. We knew 
all about the dreadful ‘Pawnee Sunday.’ 
We heard the continuous blasting of rock at 
‘Dutch Gap’ and minded it no more than did 
the obdurate canal. 

“Overlooking the river was Chimboraza, 
the largest hospital in the Confederacy, and 
thither my cousin Bella and I often went 


Secessia Virginia. 7 

with mother, to carry buttermilk or such 
poor stores as from our scanty supplies we 
spared for the sick and wounded. 

“On Libby’s Hill were the tents — the 
parade grounds — the music. Below the 
Bluff, and farther down town, were the 
prisons — Mayo’s Factory, Castle Thunder 
and the Libby. 

“There all our curiosity centered. We 
saw their red roofs from our attic windows 
and many a Jack-the-Giant-Killer specula- 
tion had we as to their inmates. 

“There was a steep hill back of uncle’s 
house leading to a street level with the 
prisons, two squares off. In the clayey 
sides of this hill, hidden by a rank growth 
of paradise trees, brother Tom cut steps for 
his own convenience which our keen eyes 
soon discovered and the lithe and active 
limbs of childhood made nothing of scaling. 

“My cousin Bella and I were inseparable. 
She was the acknowledged leader in all our 
sports and one year older than I ; but I was 


8 


Secessia Virginia. 

a worthy lieutenant, bolder in design — 
braver in execution. Bella was warm- 
hearted and impulsive, but would have fled 
from actual danger; I would have scaled 
walls in defense of those I loved, and counted 
danger as only an incentive. But we were 
fearless, adventurous children ; an out- 
growth of the exciting days in which we 
lived. 

“Many a time had we slipped down to 
Main Street via the clay steps in the break- 
neck bank ; thence to Cary Street, and 
peered, with bated breath, into the iron- 
barred windows of Libby Prison. A scowl 
from within or a rough look from the guard 
was a zest. In an atmosphere of danger its 
constant association benumbed our fears. 
Guns and guards were familiar friends — no 
fear had we of them. 

“One bright evening in September, Bella 
and I, returning home late from school, met 
Sergeant Barnes of the Prison force com- 
ing down the broad inclined pavement on 


Secessia Virginia. 9 

the further side of the noted Van Lew 
mansion. This pavement, known as the 
‘brick steps/ was the regular descent to the 
streets below, and old ‘Barney/ as we called 
him — for we knew him well — with his long, 
frayed, grey army overcoat dangling about 
his knees, was hurrying on to ‘The Libby’ 
to relieve guard. 

“ ‘The Libby’ was a square away ; a long, 
narrow, brick building, four stories high and 
running the length from Cary to Dock 
streets. It was nothing out of the com- 
mon fashion of ordinary tobacco ware- 
houses, which, indeed, it had been, with its 
lower story windows perpendicularly barred 
with iron, quite near the ground. 

“ ‘Barney/ said Bella, catching him by 
the arm, ‘please let us go with you and see 
the big prison?’ 

“ ‘Oh, yes/ I urged, ‘do let us, Barney. 
Just this once — so we can look in the win- 
dow a long, long time.’ 

“Barney was very fond of children, and 


io Secessia Virginia. 

we were special pets, so, after a bit more per- 
suasion, he said ‘yes,’ and let us scamper 
along by his side. 

“Barney was as good as his word; he 
relieved guard, and we paraded each side of 
him back and forth for a while. 

“ ‘Now, children,’ said he presently, ‘you 
can look in that window, if you wish to, and 
then run home. It’s getting late.’ 

“We drew near the corner, as Barney 
turned, and fearlessly looked in. 

“Eight at the window, seemingly just to 
have risen from a cot close by, was a 
prisoner, a young man about twenty years 
old. Wasted with sickness, gaunt and hol- 
lowed-eyed was he; indeed, he seemed to us 
all eyes, so much did the blackness of their 
depths fill in the narrow face. 

“So near were we and so startled the pale 
prisoner looked at our sudden appearance, 
that Bella and I clutched each other’s hands 
in fright. The autumn evenings carry a 
summer’s heat with them late, in Richmond, 




The next moment I had impulsively thrown inside a 
little bunch of red and yellow chrysanthemums.” 



Secessia Virginia. n 

and the dingy glass was raised behind the 
bars. One quick glance at Barney’s back, 
and the next moment I had impulsively 
thrown inside a little bunch of red and yel- 
low chrysanthemums, given me by a school- 
mate. Then Bella and I flew like birds past 
the corner and struck a bee-line for our near 
and precipitous route home. 

“Here began our little romance. Cer- 
tainly no younger heroines had ever taken 
part in one more hazardous. 

“The rules of the prison, as we knew, were 
rigid — though we may not have known for 
what cause. But we did know that these 
were dangerous ‘Yankees,’ who were to be 
kept closely confined from possible mischief ; 
that no one outside was allowed to speak to 
a prisoner, and that to give anything was to 
risk imprisonment, or at least some dire 
misfortune. 

“The next evening we loitered on our way 
from school, and halted where the streets 
crossed. One way straight home — one 


12 


Secessia Virginia. 

square aside and past the dark prison where 
the poor, sick man was locked behind bars — 
which should it be? 

“ ‘We will just walk by and see if he is 
there/ said I, ‘and see if he looks as hungry 
this evening.’ 

“ ‘And run away just as fast as ever we 
can,’ cautioned Bella. 

“Demure little figures w T e must have been 
in our cotton dresses and home-braided hats, 
as we walked beneath the prison walls. 

“One swift glance told us he was there — 
the pale boy prisoner — who left his cot and 
came near the window as we approached. 
Then two pairs of childish eyes of blue and 
brown peered into the dim obscurity and a 
little hand pushed in a spray of golden-rod 
that flashed on the dark stone sill like a ray 
of hope from the world without. There was 
no doubt now. He saw it and he saw us, 
for there came over the young face a quick 
and grateful look. 

“After the lapse of all these years I still 


Secessia Virginia. 13 

see — as I beheld it in that one fleeting vision 
— the cheerless interior of the prison hos- 
pital, with the thin forms extended, or half 
crouched on their narrow cots. This one 
prisoner, with clear-cut, boyish features 
upon which sickness — death — seemed 
stamped, steadying himself by the window 
and gazing out with a listless, hopeless look 
in his dark eyes. 

“What is it in the heart of a little girl 
that so intensifies the sense of pity for any- 
thing helpless? Surely it is the instinctive 
mother feeling. 

“From that time and from that one look 
we felt for this friendless man the tender, 
protecting pity that one gives to a child. 
Conditions had reversed our ages. In all 
our little talks after this, he was simply 
‘our poor prisoner/ Ours by a sense of 
ownership in his sorrows. We learned to 
know the expression in his sunken eyes. We 
commiserated his hollow cough — a paroxysm 
of which racked his slender frame one eve- 


14 Secessia Virginia. 

ning — and noted his wan, sick look as part 
of his claim upon us. 

“Again and again, as often as we dared, 
we ventured to the prison; sometimes by 
coaxing Barney, as often without. 

“Our small size gained us an indulgent 
smile from the surgeons in the laboratory 
at. the end of the building, if they saw us; 
and one young assistant doctor we soon 
learned to look upon quite as an accomplice. 
Perhaps these were not such close martinets 
as the regular officers ; perhaps they thought 
it safe to be lenient to the sick. 

“As the days went by I could not tell all 
we carried him ; apples, cakes, a light bun — 
bought, if we happened to have a twenty- 
five-cent paper script — and frequently a roll, 
or biscuit, with a shred of ham from our 
school-basket were quickly and surrepti- 
tiously slipped in to him. 

“We were little mites — slender children 
even for our ages — quick as sparrows in our 
motions, and often came and went while the 


Secessia Virginia. 15 

guard, with his keen glance at the upper 
windows where the well prisoners were, 
slowly paced his weary beat. 

“Of ‘our prisoner’s’ mental sufferings, of 
course we knew nothing ; the one thing that 
appealed to us being what we called his 
‘hungry look.’ 

“Nothing intimidated us or baulked our 
ingenuity, and after a few weeks we were 
traitors, indeed, for we scooped out a bit 
of apple and in the cavity rolled a childish 
note, to which we signed our names with a 
fancy flourish. 

“This mysterious epistle ran something in 
the fashion of : 

“ ‘Mr. Prisoner : We will give you sum 
Candy for your Cole termorrow. 

“ ‘Betty Landon, 

“ ‘Bella Ellett.’ 

“Thanks to our war-time training, we 
had been early initiated into this sub-rosa 
way of sending notes, for at this time Rich- 


16 Secessia Virginia. 

mond was one large clothing factory. At 
the churches, that were not hospitals, and 
at available dwelling houses, bands of 
patriotic women organized themselves in 
‘Aid Societies’ for the manufacture of uni- 
forms, and the preparing of bandages, lint, 
etc., etc., for army uses. To these meetings 
we accompanied mother or Aunt Betsy — the 
Dorcas of all good works. We had seen 
more than one lovely girl finish up the pro- 
saic pockets of a pair of grey trousers and 
fold them in with some such sentimental 
verse as : 

“ ‘Then think, ah, think hoiv lonely 
This throbbing heart ivill be — 
Which, while it beats , beats only, 
Beloved one, for thee / 

This, to say the least, being a very hopeless 
sort of affection, as the trousers may have 
been destined for the Quartermaster’s De- 
partment in the cotton fields of Georgia, or 
fallen to some father of a family in the 
sugar canes of Louisiana. 


Secessia Virginia. 17 

“And sorrowfully had we known, through 
this same mail route, some dear mother-in- 
Israel to send off with prayerful hope : 

“ ‘The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God 
of Jacob is our refuge.’ Or — ‘In famine 
He shall redeem thee from death’ — the full 
force of this last being surely needed to 
strengthen the half-famished soldiers of the 
Confederacy. So this particular form of 
communication appealed to us by the light 
of a good example. 

“One evening ‘our prisoner’s’ eyes rested 
lightly on the sill outside, and there we saw 
a bone basket ; small, perfect, white as 
ivory, and closely pressed inside a tiny slip 
of paper — an end of our own note — with the 
words: ‘God bless my only friends,’ finely 
scratched with a pin point. 

“On those rare evenings when he was not 
at the window and we met the horrid death 
wagons — which the smallest tot in Rich- 
mond knew — we shuddered with the fear 
that it was he who had died and was being 


1 8 Secessia Virginia. 

taken alone to his last resting place among 
the thousands at ‘Oakwood.’ 

“But there presently came a change. 
Our prisoner grew better, that is, he looked 
better, for no words had been spoken. For 
all each knew of the other’s language, our 
dialects may have differed as widely as our 
ideas of loyalty. He was better clothed; 
an erect carriage came to the slender figure, 
and a kind of sans souci expression about 
the handsome face, as if he and adverse fate 
had declared a truce. 

“Latterly a glad smile from the dark eyes 
greeted us, and one day he nearly laughed 
out as Bella passed with a huge sweet 
potato temptingly displayed, and which, 
after some entreaty — and doubtless much 
slicing for concealed weapons — our young 
surgeon delivered. I remember that par- 
ticularly, as Uncle Bob and the black mule 
were just in from ‘Burleigh’ with the ‘crap 
o’ taters.’ 

“How we could have lived in those days 


19 


Secessia Virginia. 

of semi-starvation without supplies from' 
the home place I do not know, and these fell 
far short of our needs, for all able-bodied 
servants were pressed to work upon the 
labyrinth of breastworks that girded Rich- 
mond, and few were left to till the fields. 

“Darker days were at hand. Bella was 
taken sick. She was a beautiful child, who, 
through all the scant fare of our twin 
households, had, until now, retained her 
round face and rosy cheeks. 

“I was thin and wiry, and suffered less 
in privation. ‘Tough/ Mammy called it, 
who was wont to declare that ‘ole Mis’ 
nuwer die while dat chile lib/ albeit ‘ole 
Mis’ ’ — meaning my maternal grandmother 
— was dead years before I was born. 

“Bella did not improve, and gave but 
little prospect of being out soon, so we held 
a council of war and decided that I should 
wait for Barney’s evening on duty and go 
with him to the prison. I started, but not 
meeting Barney, resolutely concluded to 


20 Secessia Virginia. 

venture alone. No thought of shirking 
what, by this time, had grown from the heat 
of a child’s generous impulse to an affec- 
tionate ^ense of duty, crossed my small 
mind. I walked on, faster than usual. 

“Yes, he was there, looking anxiously out 
at the bars — and the sash was down! But 
he gave me a quick smile, raised his white 
fingers to his lips, and slightly shook his 
head as the beardless M.D. came in sight. 

“This was an evening of fatalities. I 
lingered too long near the window, and had 
taken but a few steps away when the guard 
— a stranger — grasped my arm. Not much 
of ‘ole Mis’ ’ valor, that I had heard so often 
vaunted among the servants, came to her 
little namesake then, for I nearly shrieked 
with terror. 

“ ‘What are you doing here?’ demanded 
the sentinel. 

“But I choked back my fears and was a 
Yankee for once. 


Secessia Virginia. 21 

“ ‘" Where is Mr. Barnes?’ I asked. 6 Ain’t 
this his evening on?’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but I ain’t Mr. Barnes 
and this is no place for you,’ giving me a 
grim look as he released my arm. 

“And — I put up the street, and climbed 
the hillside steps like an Alpine goat! 
Once there we were always safe. But 
either the fright, or long insufficient nour- 
ishment, told upon me also, for next day I 
was ill. 

“When we recovered, Bella and I, we were 
pale little shadows of what we had been. 

“We learned from Barney’s wife, who lived 
near us, that he had been sent to field duty, 
and it was long after Christmas before we 
went to the frowning old ‘Libby’ again. 
Then, in fear and trembling we walked se- 
dately past. 

“The windows were closed and barred. 
No prisoners were on the ground floor 
where the hospital had been, and from the 


22 Secessia Virginia. 

windows above we saw no one like the boy 
captive we had pitied so much; no hand- 
some dark eyes grew glad at sight of the 
little rebel girls. 

“Time and again, as we grew stronger, 
we passed the prison and furtively stole a 
look up at the shadowy forms, while even 
then we felt a touch of ‘woman’s weary 
waiting,’ and fearful thoughts of the death 
wagon grieved our little hearts at night. 

“We saw ‘our poor prisoner’ no more. 

“Meanwhile, the coil was tightening 
around Eichmond. 

“Gradually the compass of hope grew 
smaller and oftener the alarm bells rang, 
calling out the reserves — the old men and 
the boys to the city’s defenses. 

“Amid want and privations only known 
to a besieged city, coupled with the riotous 
murmurings of a portion of its populace, 
the few weeks elapsed until the eventful 
day which closed the unequal struggle. Of 


Secessia Virginia. 23 

that memorable time, when Richmond fell, 
so much has been written there is nothing 
new to chronicle. 

“We were not on the fire-belt, but from 
Churchhill overlooked a valley of seething 
flames. The explosion of the powder maga- 
zine, the bursting shells at the armory, the 
deafening bombs exploding in every direc- 
tion, tolled off the hours; for time seemed 
to have gone into a fearful eternity. 

“We children were kept in the house and 
how the next few days passed, I know not. 
All communication with the home place 
was cut off, and our allowance of food was 
divided out in famine rations. Added to 
which, mother’s grief for my father’s un- 
certain fate quenched even her brave spirit. 

“And so the days went by. 

“One morning, we were all in mother’s 
room — for fear kept us together — when 
Mammy came in and handed mother a 
card. 

“ ‘What does he want, Judy?’ said mother, 


24 Secessia Virginia. 

turning it about. ‘What can he want with 
me?’ 

“ ‘De name er heaben on’y kno’, Mis’ 
Ma’y,’ replied Mammy, ‘hit’s a Yankee ossi- 
fer, an’ he say he wants you erlone.’ 

“Mother gave one look at her frightened 
little flock; said something in a low tone to 
Mammy and went slowly out. 

“Mam’ Judy gave us our scant dinner of 
dried peas, corn bread and black molasses, 
and Bella and I crept upstairs and en- 
sconced ourselves in our favorite dormer 
window. 

“After a long while we heard mother call ; 
and then Mammy came panting up the 
steps — for hard times had not told upon her 
stout frame. 

“ ‘You’ ma wants you all, chil’un — bofe 
on you,’ she said to Bella and me. 

“We went downstairs, supposing the ‘os- 
sifer’ was gone. He was not, and our win- 
der increased when Mammy got us clean 
blue checkered aprons and put them on over 




Colonel Wychoff,” she said, “I suppose these are the 
children! ” 


Secessia Virginia. 25 

our home-spun dresses, saying, ‘mother 
wanted us in the parlor.’ 

“Partly frightened, and with the old Eve 
very much aroused, we stood while Mammy 
twisted Bella’s curls and pulled my own 
thick plaits — ‘ole Mis’ har’ she called it — 
tighter back. 

“Mother met us at the parlor door. ‘Colo- 
nel Wychoff,’ she said, taking us each by the 
hand, ‘I suppose these are the children !’ 

“What did mother mean? And why did 
she look at us as if she didn’t quite know? 
And, oh, horror! What did it mean when 
this ‘Yankee,’ in all his glittering uniform, 
came toward us with outstretched hands? 

“The grand officer led us back to his 
chair, and kissing us each very solemnly, 
looked us over with careful scrutiny, as if 
trying to see in what way we differed from 
our more fortunate little sisters of the 
North. 

“ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘these are the children.’ 

“The intuitions of childhood are infalli- 


26 Secessia Virginia. 

ble; with one good look in his kindly face 
we feared no more. 

“We gazed in awe at the blueness of his 
coat and the glory of his shining epaulets 
and golden eagles. Alas! the uniforms we 

** xew 

had lately seen were old and faded, and the 
gilt was as dimmed as the rank they now 
represented. 

“The Colonel soon had Bella upon his 
knee while I stood by in amazement. Pres- 
ently he brought out an orange — everything 
else came in with the conquering troops — 
and we thought that any goose might know 
he had a little girl. So we prefaced the 
affirmative by asking ‘if his little girl liked 
oranges ?’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ he smiled, “my big girl does, and I 
have a big boy who likes oranges and is 
very, very fond of little girls.’ 

“ ‘No,’ said pert Miss Bella. ‘Not little 
Richmond girls he wouldn’t. Everybody 
ain’t like you ; they call us rebel girls, and 


Secessia Virginia. 27 

one blue soldier mocked at Minnie Carter 
and called her “old secesh !” ’ 

“ ‘Bless my life !’ laughed the Colonel. 
‘What a very singular name; but of all 
little girls it is the Richmond ones that my 
boy loves the very best/ with a moistened 
look in his fine, old eyes as they traveled 
over to mother. 

“By this time we had made such progress 
in our friendship that we were anxious for 
our whole family to be seen, which mother 
qualified by saying we might bring down 
Cecie. 

“Now, Cecie was our beauty and our 
pride, besides being an important chrono- 
logical character in herself ; as she was born 
the night Virginia ‘seceded/ and named in 
consequence, Secessia Virginia, — a name 
of which she had been inordinately proud, 
and delighted to repeat to father’s officer 
friends, to their great gratification though 
why we did not exactly understand. 

“But of all things, something of late days 


28 Secessia Virginia. 

had gone wrong with Cede’ s name. I had 
overheard a neighbor say to mother : ‘That 
child will get you all in trouble yet with 
her name; you would better call her “Gin- 
nie,** if any of the Yankee soldiers are 
around.* 

“No favored cherub of any land could 
have been lovelier than our Cede, with her 
brown eyes and golden hair; and I schooled 
her well as I brought her along the hall in 
triumph. 

“ ‘Now, Cede,* said I, ‘remember you are 
named Ginnie, from Virginia, you know.* 

“ ‘Yes,* said Cecie, ‘I know.* 

“Sure enough it was the first question 
asked. Cecie answered like a parrot: 

“ ‘I am named Ginnie, from Virginny, you 
know’.* 

“ ‘But,* said the Colonel, whom mother 
had coached, ‘you look like a little girl I 
have heard of, living about here, Avho is 
named “Secessia Virginia.** How is that?* 

Poor Cecie gave a terrified gasp and shot 


Secessia Virginia. 29 

through the open door like a pink and white 
cannon ball, screeching : 

“ ‘Pm named Ginnie! I’m named Ginnie! 
After Yir-gi-nia, you know!’ 

“And we heard Mammy’s oily voice : 
‘Come to Mammy, honey. What dey bin 
doin’ to Mammy’s lam’?’ 

“Mother’s hand restrained us as we made 
haste to follow Cecie, and Bella and I 
thought we knew now what all this fine 
visit meant; some hidden calamity, sure 
enough, lay in Cecie’s pretty name. But 
the Colonel declared that ‘really he had 
never heard of anything quite so good,’ and 
he laughed so heartily that even mother 
smiled and said ‘it was amusing.’ 

“Well, we were petted and made much 
of a while longer, and then mother said 
we might go ; kissing us quietly and telling 
us to ‘be good children.’ 

“The hours sped, we heard the Colonel 
leave and when mother came back from the 
parlor she was a changed person. There was 


30 


Secessia Virginia. 

a look of hope on her face and with it a 
dazed expression, as of some great good she 
could not quite realize. Once she caught 
us impulsively to her arms, and with stream- 
ing eyes murmured something about ‘bread 
upon waters.’ 

“It was long afterward before she trusted 
herself to tell us that she knew the story of 
‘our prisoner.’ In her heart mother felt it 
to be her duty to chide us, though no restric- 
tions as to our walks had been laid upon us, 
one naturally supposing that fear would 
have kept us from venturing into danger, 
but recognizing the pure principles of piety 
and love which actuated us, and the ulti- 
mate good our kindness had wrought, she 
said but little at this time. 

“For Colonel Wychoff was the father of 
‘our poor prisoner,’ who had been exchanged 
by special order during our illness. It was 
in the first month of his imprisonment, be- 
fore he had been able to communicate with 
his father and when he was ill and without 


Secessia Virginia. 31 

friends or money, that Bella and I had seen 
him, and the rigors of prison life were tell- 
ing upon a constitution already weakened 
from exposure. 

“He was doubly sick, his father said, with 
neglect and loneliness, when we came to his 
window with our childish smiles, and flowers 
and the few more solid gifts we could be- 
stow. It had given him an interest in life 
at the time he needed it most, which was per- 
haps true, and he often insisted, in after 
days, that Mammy’s hoarhound drops were 
of more benefit to him than all the medicine 
in the Confederate pharmacopoeia. Be that 
as it may, they seemed to think it a debt of 
gratitude they owed and certainly the day 
of the Federal officer’s visit to us was our 
last day of want and terror — the last of 
which being no less terrible for its uncer- 
tainty — as we of Richmond knew not, at that 
time, what further depths of woe awaited. 

“A permanent guard was placed about the 
house, and our empty larder was stored with 


32 Secessia Virginia. 

all the luxuries of life to which we had for 
so long been strangers. Best of all, Colonel 
Wychoff cheered mother with the promise to 
find father, if alive, and to use his influence 
in having him released, if a prisoner. 

“Father was neither dead nor a captive. 
He was found in a Petersburg hospital, with 
one arm just amputated ; and thither mother 
went to attend him until he could be brought 
home and nursed back to health. 

“During these weary days no man had ever 
a better friend than the victor in blue proved 
himself to the conquered soldier in tattered 
grey. 

“The land of the Hanover home was still 
our own; the walls of the well-built house 
standing, though what remained was but 
a shattered reminder of the battles fought 
around it. 

“Colonel Wychoff interested himself per- 
sonally, during father’s illness, to have the 
house repaired. He would frequently drive 
‘we children,’ including Cede, whom, with 


33 


Secessia Virginia. 

stately politeness he called ‘Secessia Vir- 
ginia’ — down the ten miles distance to ‘Bur- 
leigh,’ where Mammy and Uncle Bob and the 
black mule were already installed and at 
work. 

“Christmas saw the family at the hospita- 
ble mansion which had assumed once more 

its old-time look of peace and comfort. 

*••••••• 

“ ‘Did our romance end here?’ some of you 
are asking. Not quite. 

“When your Aunt Bella and I were girls 
of fifteen at school in Richmond, ‘our pris- 
oner’ came with his lovely bride to the city, 
for their honeymoon. We were given a 
special week’s holiday that we might be at 
home during their visit to mother. 

“It was in the month of June. Never 
had Nature seemed fairer than the morning 
we drove out from Richmond along the 
Mechanicsville road. No traces then re- 
mained of the war’s dread presence, save the 


34 Secessia Virginia. 

zigzag lines of breastworks, grown over with 
tangled vines. 

“Nearing the Chickahominy, its green 
marshes and dank hollows were the same. 

“Beyond, at ‘Burleigh,’ Labor, the King of 
Peace, had been crowned with a golden 
fruition. In the open fields, where opposing 
armies once stood, were sweeping ranks of 
Indian corn, with bine-green spear blades 
shining in the sun. On the rolling ground, 
where the artillery had been posted, and the 
boom of shot and shell thundered its deadly 
challenge, the ripening wheat swept aslant 
its opulent breadths, and waved in a sym- 
phony of peace. On the meadow bottoms — 
no longer the ambush of lurking foes — the 
mower swung his scythe in rhythmic strokes, 
and left in his wake a ridge of new-mown 
hay. Everywhere the air was full of sweet 
and homely scents and the cheerful sounds of 
toil. 

“Lieutenant Wychoff came not as a 
stranger to the Virginia family whom his 


Secessia Virginia. 35 

father had so befriended. He was quickly 
a favorite with all on the farm, from father 
to the denizens of ‘The Quarters/ — who were 
the old family servants now ‘crappin’ ’ on 
‘shears’ or working for regular wages. 

He and father rode many a mile over the 
battlefields of Cold Harbor and Gaines’ 
Mill, and talked ‘war’ until one would have 
thought them senior and junior officers in 
the same regiment. 

“It was altogether a delightful visit, to be 
returned some years later by two full-grown 
young ladies very anxious to behold the 
grandeur of Northern cities, and to have a 
closer acquaintance with the once dreaded 
‘Yankees.’ 

“One of them, indeed, being so willing to 
heal the wounds of a divided country that 
she remained among them as a hostage for- 
evermore. 

“Years have gone by. Among the younger 
generation the given names of Landon and 


36 Secessia Virginia. 

Wychoff are of frequent occurrence between 
these representative families of the North 
and South, who are one now in fealty and 
love of country. 

“Lieutenant Wychoff, however, is traitor 
enough to say that he ‘would like to see 
again, if but for a single hour, the poorly- 
clad little rebel girls who came to his prison 
window, as the ravens came to Elijah/ ” 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 37 


TWO WAR-TIME CHRISTMAS DOLLS. 

HOW THEY RAN THE BLOCKADE AND WHAT 
THEY CARRIED WITH THEM. 


T HERE were two of ns. We lay side 
by side in the line glass case of a 
store on Lexington Street in Bal- 
timore, when, one snowy, clus- 
tering day in early December of 1864, a 
pale-faced, pretty lady entered the store, 
and stood right in front of us. 

She had on a close felt bonnet tied under 
her round chin, and wore a long cloth circu- 
lar bordered in fur, that quite concealed her 
trim little figure. 

“Dolls, ma’am,” echoed our owner, step- 
ping briskly forward to greet his customer. 
“Yes, ma’am, a fine assortment just in for the 
holiday trade. We’ve got jointed dolls, and 


38 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

musical dolls, and this,” sorting some rare 
specimen from the rest, “is a crying 
doll ” 

“I should think crying dolls would be in 
demand in poor Baltimore now,” interrupted 
the pale, pretty lady with a faint smile. 

“Well, not more than usual, ma’am. It’s 
wonderful how folks do keep up Christmas 
for all the battles and mourning. Children 
are children just the same, in war-time, I 
s’pose.” 

“Please let me see those dolls in the case,” 
asked the lady with some air of impatience. 

“Ah, these?” he said, lifting us out by each 
an arm, — “these are beauties. Nothing to 
break here — heads firm,” giving mine an easy 
twist, for fear it might come off ; “natural 
hair,” smoothing back my pale pompadour, 
“and no inside works to get out of order. 
Good, sensible dolls.” 

The little mother — I knew she was a 
mother the moment she held my companion 
— examined us carefully. She took us, one 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 39 

at a time, to the door, turned us about, and 
pinched — actually pinched our skins. 

It really quite piqued my vanity that she 
seemed more particular about our limbs and 
how we were made, and our knee and arm 
joints than our pretty tinted faces, bright 
eyes, and the fine texture of our flowing hair. 

“Yes,” she decided at length. “I think 
these will answer. I will take the pair.” 

“And you are right. They’re a handsome 
couple; pity to part ’em,” mumbled the mer- 
chant, the end of twine between his teeth as 
he rolled us, separately, first in tissue paper 
and then in brown. “Where shall I send 
them, ma’am?” 

“I’ll take them with me,” answered the 
lady. 

She paid her bill, and we went each into a 
deep, deep pocket that almost filled the either 
side of her long circular. 

Then she drew down her thick veil and left 
the store. 

Up and down the streets — in and out of 


40 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

the stores, went the veiled lady, while new 
parcels accumulated in the great pockets 
of her long cloak. 

And came lastly to a place the very whiff 
of which penetrating my wrappings, smelled 
of drugs. 

But she passed straight on through to a 
room that felt cozy and warm. 

Bless you ! She was well known there ! 

Such talking — whispered, and quick — and 
smothered little laughs it seemed about 
something quite unusual. At last turning to 
go, the lady begged : 

“Now, don’t trust it with any one else.” 

“No, no,” was the hasty assurance. “I 
will bring it myself — this evening. But is 
it safe? — Do you not fear to ” 

“Fear !” with a rising scorn. “There is no 
such word as fear,” she said. 

“And when do you leave?” the other asked. 

“To-night. They only gave me two days.” 

The veiled lady’s next stopping place was 
evidently her home, for the door opened as 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 41 

she approached, and a sweet old voice 
greeted her. 

“Oh, child, I Ve been so uneasy !” 

“Sh ! mother dear. Help me upstairs.” 

“Is it all right, Phyllis?” questioned her 
mother anxiously, when they reached an 
upper room. 

“Yes — yes, all right, mama; but I have 
had such a time!” 

“And are wet through?” 

“Oh, no, only outside — and see! Here are 
my treasures,” she said, unwinding us ten- 
derly as the old lady helped her rifle the 
big cloak pockets. 

“Why, they are nice !” exclaimed the elder, 
bruising my poor leg, “and strong enough 
to ” 

“Mind, mother ! The very walls in Balti- 
more have ears,” cautioned the daughter, as 
she laid us on the bed. 

“No one will hear us, Phyllis; we are 
alone for this afternoon, — but come,” the 


42 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

mother urged, “you are cold and tired. I 
have kept your hot tea waiting.” 

With something of anxiety in their glance 
around the handsome bedroom, they locked 
the door and went downstairs. 

The room we were in was much dis- 
ordered. 

Heaps of clothing, dry-goods, packages of 
all kinds littered the chairs. 

In one corner a large trunk stood open. 
It appeared that some one was going on a 
journey. The little mother, so weary-look- 
ing, but with such brave, brown eyes, seemed 
scarcely strong enough for a long trip ; but 
it soon became clear she was secretly pre- 
paring for one of a hazardous nature. 

When they returned mother and daughter 
locked themselves in. and went to work in a 
strange way. 

They tore rich dress goods into skirt 
lengths; they cut linen and cambric and 
flannel by huge patterns and basted them 
roughly ; all manner of garments they began 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 43 

and left unfinished — the old lady grumbling 
at the wasted labor. 

“But you see, mother,” said Phyllis, her 
little gold thimble cleaving the air, “the 
goods cannot be taken whole. They would 
be stopped as contraband; and they will 
make over nicely ; we are so much in need.” 

The mother sewed on and lamented. 

“Oh, this dreadful war, Phyllis ! If John 
would only ” 

“If John thinks he’s right, mother,” broke 
in Phyllis firmly, “my place is with him. 
And Lily and Willie, except for plainer fare, 
are as well there as here. You never saw 
babies grow faster than mine.” 

She finished this bravely, blinking back 
the tears as she spoke. 

“But to part again, my child — after all 
these years — and so soon.” 

“Others have not even our comfort, dear 
mother; John said if the Provost knew — I 
wouldn’t be here a day.” 

A bell rang. Phyllis hastened to answer 


44 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

it, and brought back a bulky parcel, which, 
to my surprise, she put between the mat- 
tresses. 

“Well,” she said, with a sigh of relief, as 
she replaced the bed, “that at least is safe. 
We won’t fix the dolls until to-night,” giv- 
ing me a loving little pat in passing. Of 
course that meant beautiful dressing and I 
was truly glad that something promised to 
be natural. 

They worked steadily on. The trunk be- 
gan to fill ; the young mother seemed more 
and more given over to destructiveness. 

Lustrous ribbons, creamy laces, filmy 
handkerchiefs, all the elegant trifles of taste- 
ful dress, she crumpled and made to look 
worn, while she placed them promiscuously 
in the trunk. 

“And, oh, mama !” she cried, flitting about 
like a bird, “think what a blessing it will 
be if I can only get through with the dolls !” 

“Phyllis, I tremble at the thought. There 
will be your danger.” 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 45 

“Not danger, perhaps, mama mine; though 
it may be confiscation” — this with a very 
wry face — “and the loss of all my new ward- 
robe.” 

That night the old lady came up alone. 

Below stairs there was laughter and music 
and the hum of gay voices. 

It was late when Phyllis appeared. 

“We will have to work now for lost time,” 
she began in her cheery way. “Have you the 
glue ready, mother?” 

“Yes — simmering nicely,” was the reply. 

“Then you will come here, my Willie’s 
doll,” said the little mother, “and we will 
see if a doll cannot be useful as well as 
beautiful,” lifting my companion as she 
spoke and reaching between the beds for the 
bulky package. 

Both she placed upon a table beside the 
old lady. 

Then she undid the big parcel. And what 
do you think it contained? 

A great mass of soft fluffy stuff, lighter 


4.6 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

than flour, and whiter than snow — if it could 
be! 

I had seen many a doll in my master’s 
store dressed for the Christmas holidays, 
but I had never seen anything like this. 

When I saw Phyllis take up a long, slim 
knife and run it deep under poor Willie’s 
neck, if I had been a crying doll, I should 
surely have screamed! 

As it was, I lay quite still and watched. 

The slim knife worked in and out, care- 
fully breaking something a-loose, and then 
the little mother’s hands — that seemed too 
tender to hurt a fly — lifted the doll’s head 
clean off, and set it on the table. 

A pair of gleaming scissors ripped open 
the cords across the headless body and then 
— snip — clip — the arms and the legs were 
severed and fell apart. 

Then they spread a paper and the old lady 
emptied each limb as the daughter handed 
it over until there was nothing left of the 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 4 7 

poor doll but a bit of flabby skin, with 
neither bone nor muscle in it. 

All this while they talked volubly like 
a pair of conspirators — as they were. 

“My child/’ warned the mother, “you must 
be very careful. The blockade runners are 
so closely watched.” 

“Yes, I know. But you see, mother, the 
Federals pass me to Point of Rocks.” 

“Ah, but afterward ” 

“I must trust to luck. I may be searched,” 
said Phyllis ruefully, “my baggage will be, of 
course. I have heard no trunk escapes that 
lynx-eyed lieutenant.” 

“Lieutenant !” echoed the mother. “Why, 
I thought the blockade spy was a woman.” 

“Oh, so she is — or he is,” laughed Phyllis ; 
“anyhow, they say it wears the Federal uni- 
form of a lieutenant.” 

“The brazen piece! Trolling ’round the 
country in men’s clothes,” cried the old lady 
indignantly. “But, oh, my love, if she finds 


48 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

you out ! Women are so keen to suspect an- 
other.” 

.“I’ll try and guard against dilemmas, 
mama. The very virtue of what I carry will 
be a talisman.” 

“And take no letters, Phyllis. Not even 
to ” 

“Nor pen, nor pencil mark, nor one trait- 
orous word,” answered Phyllis. “This is dif- 
ferent,” as she scooped up the white powder. 
“I don’t feel I’m doing wrong, for every 
grain here may be worth a human life.” 

And she poured another spoonful in the 
doll’s leg which her mother held suspended. 

For all this time they had been filling the 
white powder in the doll’s body, and ram- 
ming it in tightly until never a baby grew 
plump so fast. 

Then back and forth their shining needles 
flew until the disjointed limbs were together. 

Even the head had not escaped and Wil- 
lie’s glossy black curls swept the table as the 
last morsel of powder went tightly in. 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 49 

“A piece of paper, mama,” then called 
Phyllis, “to paste over the neck while I get 
the glue.” 

Presently she held up the resurrected doll 
in triumph, and asked : 

“Except that it is heavier, mother, who 
would know?” 

“No one, I think, dear. Get the other.” 

As Phyllis raised me from the bed, my eyes 
turned toward the table. I saw the old 
woman take up the slim knife, and peer over 
her glasses at me as she felt along its keen 
edge, and I fainted away with terror. 

After that my head was never quite right. 
I could not hear so well. There were buzzing 
sounds inside and sharp little concussions 
like the snaps of toy torpedoes. 

Next morning when I was beautifully 
dressed in a spangled tarlton skirt and crim- 
son satin bodice, I felt better, and was quite 
revived when my astonished gaze fell upon 
Willie, who was in full regimentals of blue, 
with golden epaulets and stars, just as I 


50 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

had seen them many a time in the cafd at 
the store. 

Late in the afternoon Phyllis and her 
mother came in the room together. 

We were wrapped in a new shawl — from 
which a bit of fringe was torn away — and I 
could just hear the little mother’s chirping 
voice : 

“Prison, indeed, mama! Have no fears. 
They are too anxious to be rid of John’s 
wife for that! And to think that I should 
take the first Yankee officer into Richmond !” 
she added. 

The poor old mother was not so easily 
consoled. 

She folded her arms closely around 
Phyllis, and as they knelt together beside the 
bed, I could hear her low tones broken with 
sobs. She prayed for their loved ones and 
for themselves and for peace. 

“Oh, the peace,” she wept, “that seems so 
far from this distracted nation !” 

After that there was a hubbub of voices in 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 51 

farewell ; the trunk shut down with a spring 
and I knew no more. 

In the bare barracks of the Point of Rocks 
army post I next saw the light. Phyllis 
stood by her open trunk, and a company of 
blue-coated, yellow-braided soldiers, with 
high cavalry boots and clanking sabres loi- 
tered near with some curiosity. 

A young lieutenant with a smooth face 
and ringlets of red hair, whose duty it was to 
examine ladies’ baggage, stooped over and 
lifted us from the trunk tray. 

“Umph — dolls !” he said in a high falsetto, 
as we were unwrapped. 

There was a roar of laughter. 

“Dolls!” exclaimed a sergeant, taking us 
from the lieutenant. He lifted one in each 
hand so the men might see. 

“Boys, ye ain’t been seein’ nothing of this 
sort lately. Gosh ! they do take my eye !” 

The men crowded around. 

“I’ve got three babies at home myself, 


52 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

ma’am,” said the old sergeant, apologeti- 
cally to Phyllis, but the red-head lieutenant 
grunted as I was turned topsy-turvy and 
handed around. 

I was soon passed back to Phyllis — ap- 
parently the soldiers were afraid of my femi- 
nine finery. But Willie they hailed with 
shouts. 

“Say ! here’s a new way to conquer the 
Rebs!” cried one. 

“The Trojan horse come again, by Jove!” 

“Capturin’ our officers!” roared another. 

“Pass ’em on, Lieutenant !” shouted a 
third. With boyish impulses they tossed the 
small stuffed officer from one to another, 
while Phyllis stared for five seconds in hor- 
rified expectation that the white, fluffy stuff- 
ing would break out at some seam. Then 
her voice rang out clearly : 

“Don’t — oh, don’t break them, gentlemen 
— don’t. They are for my children!” 

The little mother’s small hands were 
clasped, the tears glistening in her brave 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 53 

brown eyes. She looked lovely enough to 
melt the heart of a rock as she pleaded for 
us. 

It was time; for the last leap had landed 
Willie clear across the room, and was cer- 
tainly a good catch. 

But when Phyllis spoke every cap was 
doffed, and Willie was handed to her with a 
bow. 

The men lingered, laughing, but after 
awhile they went out leaving us alone with 
the smooth-faced fellow, who continued to 
dive down into the trunk until it was empty. 

“Umph!” he grunted again, a very ingeni- 
ous arrangement,” shaking out a bundle of 
unfinished silk skirts, and peeping at him- 
self in an ivory-backed hand mirror that lay 
beneath them. 

“Are these things for your own personal 
use?” he questioned, opening a box of kid 
gloves, every pair of which I had seen Phyllis 
try on. 

“Solely for my own use and personal 


54 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

adornment,” replied the saucy little mother, 
confidently. 

He fumbled a while longer among the 
tossed-up clothing, doused half a bottle of 
cologne on his handkerchief, and told Phyllis 
she could re-pack ; and leaning cross-legged 
against the mantel he puffed away at a cigar 
and waited as she deftly re-filled the trunk. 

But when she reached for us he stepped 
forward. Oh, but my heart stood still ! 

Though the brave little woman — not a 
feature changed, as that spy lieutenant took, 
us from her and felt all over my satin waist, 
and peeped up Willie’s long blue trousers. 

“Umph,” he grunted at last: “no letters 
— no papers — nothing contraband.” 

Then his spurs jingled, his sword rattled, 
and the smoke from his cigar blew around 
his red curls in a fog, as he left the room. 

When Phyllis placed us in the trunk tray, 
she bowed her head and whispered something 
so softly that it was never heard on earth. 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 55 

Then she motioned to a servant who had 
been waiting. He took the trunk on his 
shoulder and set off, followed by Phyllis, 
toward a hut I had seen on the outskirts of 
the military camp. 

The debatable land — the district occupied 
by neither army, but scouted over by both — 
and about which I had heard Phyllis and her 
mother speak of with such terror, was now 
before her — and great was her fear of dis- 
covery. 

Troops moving on raid or reconnaissance, 
she had been told, were quick to independent 
action, and the little mother knew that if any 
band stopped her they might again examine 
her baggage — with keener judgment than the 
soi-disant lieutenant, chiefly occupied with 
her feminine finery, had shown. 

So she determined on a midnight flitting. 

The flare of a tallow candle shone about 
me when next the trunk was opened. 


56 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

“Yes, I will soon be ready,” I heard Phyl- 
lis say. 

I could have sworn to the birdlike tones 
of her voice anywhere, but I doubted my own 
eyes when they fell upon her face, which was 
as black as burnt cork could make it. Not 
even a trace remained of the dainty white- 
ness of her hands. 

Near by stood an old colored woman, who 
slipped a coarse, plaid garment, like her 
own, over Phyllis’ trim figure, and hid her 
brown hair beneath a rainbow bandana. 

“How do I look now, auntie?” she asked, 
folding a big striped shawl over her shoul- 
ders. 

“Jes’ spry, honey, ’ceptin’ dem lill feet! 
Heah — you take dese, an’ I’ll go bar’ foot.” 

“But, auntie — the cold. I don’t like ” 

“Nebber mind what you likes. I knows 
bes’. De Yankee cabalry mought ketch us 
and ef dey see you lill boots, dey’ll ’spect de 
troof. Come, we’s got to step peart. You’s 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 57 

my gal Mandy, gwine home; ’member dat, 
honey.” 

“And can we carry these?” asked Phillis, 
holding us out toward the woman. “If my 
trunk is lost I’d like to save the dolls.” 

“Well — ain’ dey purty! Yes’m, kyar ’em 
easy. But de trunk — Lawd! Dey nebber 
ketch Jeff.” 

“Sarvant, Missis,” said Jeff himself, as an 
old man came in — the light flickering on his 
ebony face and grizzled hair. “Is yer ready? 
Time yer all wuz gone,” he advised. “Hit’ll 
be broad daylight presen’ — ’fore yer kin 
parse de ” 

Here we were thrust into a bundle and 
borne on the top of the black woman’s head, 
and her bare feet stepped quickly out into 
the darkness. Phyllis thumped briskly along 
in the big shoes behind her. 

The walking continued a long while and 
in silence; when toward them on the hard 
road came the clattering of hoofs and the 


58 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

sharp ejaculation, “Halt!” rang out just 
above me. 

There was a short parley, for the old 
woman did the talking. 

“Now come on, gal,” she cried, finally. 
“You gwine poke ’long here all day?” She 
clutched the bundle tightly and went on so 
fast that Phyllis could scarcely keep the 
pace. 

When they rested we were in the dusk of 
a piny wood and the old woman lifted her 
bundle down. Low rumblings shook the 
earth, and rattling and bumping sounds were 
tearing by like the drag of heavy wagons. 

I heard distant reports — and crackling 
gunshots — and music! Oh, I knew the mu- 
sic! “Yankee Doodle” and the “Star 
Spangled Banner” and “The Girl I Left Be- 
hind Me!” 

Often and often I had heard those tunes 
from the drums and cornets of the band in 
Baltimore when the marching regiments 
passed the store ! 



The sharp ejaculation, “Halt!” rang out. 















































































































































Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 59 

After so long these notes died away, and 
little shots then came fainter and far be- 
tween. 

Hours elapsed before we dared to move 
on. 

When we stopped again it was within the 
smoky walls of a log cabin. There Phyllis 
sank upon the bed a pitiable sight. Great 
rolling tears washed the dye from her face in 
streaks, and the daubs of white and black 
were like the piebald complexion of a toy cat. 
Auntie pulled away the turban, and held a 
glass to the little mother’s lips. 

“Drink dis, honey,” she said, “and go to 
sleep. We’s had a tight pull, but we’s got 
fro, an’ dere ain’ nullin’ ’tall gwine hurt you 
now. We’s safe.” 

“Oh, am I safe at last? At last?” mur- 
mured poor Phyllis. 

“You is dat, honey. ’Way down Souf in 
Dixie!” 

Phyllis slept the deep sleep of complete 
exhaustion all day. 


6o Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 


There was a blaze in the wide open fire- 
place and the aroma of coffee filled the room. 

The mild winter sunlight slanted in long 
beams across the rough boards and was go- 
ing down, when a horse whinnied outside. 

Auntie hastened to the door. 

“Bless Gawd ! You’s come at las’. I ’clar’ 
dis time, Jeff, I was skeered. In de name o’ 
hebben, what’s been gwine on?” 

“I dunno. Hed a scrimmage wid some 
gorillas, or suthin’ — b’leeve in my soul I’se 
dodged de whole army wid Marse Linkum 
at de haid.” 

A cart backed to the open entrance, and 
from under a heaping load of hay Jeff 
brought in the trunk. 

“An’ de lady,” he asked, “how’d she stan’ 
it?” 

“Like to a-drapped,” said Auntie, “when 
de fus soldier tol’ us to git outen de road; 
de rigiment was behint. Ef I hedn’t ketched 
her han’ an’ run fer de woods we mought o’ 
bin kilt,” 


Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 61 

“Or diskivered,” said Jeff. 

Auntie crept to the bed and leaned over. 

Phyllis, awakening, caught her two hands 
and pressed them between her own. 

“Oh, you good soul!” she said, “I shall 
never, never forget you !” 

“Den git up, chile, ef you’s rested. E r ery 
t’ing’s ready fer yer baf — an’ dar’s yer 
trunk.” 

That roused her. She was the intrepid 
little mother once more, despite her grimy 
face; which her warm bath soon rendered 
as fair and beautiful as ever. 

We traveled smoothly after this with a 
rolling motion that carried us swiftly on- 
ward. 

I knew, at length, when the puffing engine 
stopped, and the trunk was wheeled over the 
cobble-paved streets of a city; and I felt 
when we were lifted from a carriage and 
carried up innumerable steps into the stillest 
and gloomiest building I was ever in. 


62 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

Everything here was silent, and sad, and 
solemn. 

Here they placed us upon a long table at 
which many women worked, scraping cloth 
into piles of lint, and filling paper boxes 
with little balls that were not bon-bons. 

Groups of men in uniforms of grey — as 
sober looking as themselves — gathered about 
us in grave curiosity. 

One of these, a tall, stately man whom they 
called “General,” stood sternly by and gave 
explicit directions to a matron as she un- 
looped my ribbon sash and stripped away 
my satin bodice and spangled skirt. 

Paralyzed with fear, there came a blank in 
my existence — for how long I know not. 

Coming back to life my dreamy fancies 
took delightful forms. 

I was a happy doll once more! I floated 
in candy grottoes; winged cupids swung 
around me, and Roman candles and sky- 
rockets fell in dazzling showers at my feet. 



A tall, stately man, whom they called “General,” stood 
sternly by. 


















. 












' 






' 





Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 63 

Half-awake I wacked them dress Willie 
again in the gay, blue regimentals of a Fed- 
eral officer. 

On the long table there was a great mass 
of soft, fluffy white powder, so like the other 
that I shuddered at the memory. 

The matron gathered the white powder 
upon two broad plates and the stern surgeon- 
general smiled and smiled again as the piles 
of powder grew higher and higher. Then 
with extreme care he poured it all into a 
big glass jar labeled, “Quinine!” 

Before we left the gloomy hospital we 
were again as plump and healthy as before 
our tragic journey. 

In the evening we were carried home. 

Home, with the stately surgeon-general; 
where the little mother met us at the door 
and the great doctor — all his sternness van- 
ished in smiles of love — folded her in his 
arms, with the tips of her dark curls just 
touching the golden stars of his coat collar. 

For this was “John !” 


64 Two War-Time Christmas Dolls. 

Such a happy home-coming as it was ! And 
such a happy Christmas Eve as we had, even 
in beleaguered Richmond! 

And oh, the delight with which Lily and 
Willie — for whom we had been named — 
danced into their parents’ room the next 
morning, to show the magnificent Yankee 
dolls that Santa Claus sent them through the 
underground railway. 


The King’s Whirr. 


65 


THE KING’S WHIRR. 


N OW, mother, I promised Willie 
Rives and the other boys to go 
with them to Blakey’s pond this 
afternoon ; they’re going to have 
a glorious time fishing, and I haven’t tried 
the new line father brought me from Char- 
lottesville yet. I can’t now — I just can’t.” 

And Harry Lewis dashed down his straw 
hat on the kitchen dresser with a force that 
spoke all of his impatience. 

“My son! my son!” cried Mrs. Lewis, a 
soft-voiced woman, whose tones often stole . 
into Harry’s heart and checked its wild, hot 
impulses. 

“But, mother,” he said, a little contritely, 

“I can’t this time. I can’t give up all my 


66 The King’s Whirr. 

pleasure just to carry Granny Beaver down 
to the mill-road,” and there were tears of 
real vexation in his eyes as he grumbled: 
“I’m sure if ever I live to be eighty I hope 
Til know enough to stay at home, instead 
of plaguing folks to carry me off to gossip 
with another old crony !” 

Harry was in a great heat of temper, 
for his inclinations and his conscience 
were having a sharp battle. His mother 
knew that it would be no slight sacrifice for 
him to resign his half-day holiday in the 
woods and the fishing with his classmates 
for a ride with an infirm old woman. 

But Mrs. Lewis was a judicious mother, 
and she would not command obedience; 
there would be no merit in that. She just 
laid down the pretty linen shirt bosom she 
was hemstitching, and looking at him with 
her calm, earnest gaze, said : 

“Well, my boy, I shall not urge you fur- 
ther; I only want you to remember that the 
time may come when you too may be a poor 


The King’s Whirr. 67 

and lonely old creature, without a joy or a 
hope, perhaps, and you won’t be sorry then 
that in your strong, happy boyhood you put 
aside your own pleasure to do a good deed 
and Mrs. Lewis resumed her sewing. 

Harry did not answer. He rapped the 
table sharply with his knuckles, knit his 
open brow into double crisscross lines and 
sauntered out to the garden. 

Mrs. Lewis knew the struggle that was 
going on, deep and hard, in her boy’s soul, 
and she whispered a prayer that he might 
be led to obey its better voice. 

There was no half-heartedness in Harry 
Lewis. If he made up his mind to do an 
unpleasant thing there was never any delay 
or sullen hesitation about it. It was, per- 
haps, half an hour when he returned to the 
house. He came quickly up to his mother, 
and spoke in a rapid way, as if afraid to 
trust himself. 

‘ “Well, mother, it seems like something 
always happens when I want to — but — but 


68 


The King’s Whirr. 

— anyway, I’ve been over to tell Granny 
we’d start off at once. I want to be gone, 
yon know, before the boys get here. They’ll 
make game of me, and I’ll get mad and ” 

“And yon are my own brave boy !” smiled 
his mother, her eyes dim with thick tears 
as she bent down and kissed him. 

“There, Granny Beaver ! All right now?” 
asked the boy, raising his tones that the old 
woman, who was quite deaf, could hear him. 

“Yes, Harry,” answered the broken voice. 
“Bless your heart for your care of a helpless 
old woman!” 

Harry sprang lightly into the wagon and 
they rolled away from the door of the little 
red cottage, on whose blackened roof had 
stormed the changes of a century. 

“What a beautiful day it is!” quavered 
the old woman, peering with her dim eyes 
about her. “I declare it puts new life into 
my old bones to git out, and makes me feel 
a’most as peart as if I was a gal agin !” 

“I expect times have altered considerably 


The King’s Whirr. 69 

since then, haven’t they, Granny?” sug- 
gested Harry, whose heart somehow began 
to warm toward the old woman, as one’s 
heart is apt to do for those to whom we act 
kindly. 

“Yes, child; what with the new-fangled 
notions and the new ways o’ traveling and 
’specially o’ preachin’ and livin’, folks have 
got a long way from the good old-fashioned 
days.” 

Harry was too wise to venture an argu- 
ment on the comparative merits of the past 
and present, so he flicked the horse gently 
with the whip and looked around on the 
day that had blossomed out of the heart of 
May. 

It was wondrous with beauty. All its 
pulses seemed beating to a jubilee of praise; 
soft winds stirred the fluted branches in the 
woods, and the robins trilled down sweet 
notes of music; the mountains wore a hazy 
mist of blue in the distance, and the skies, 


70 


The King’s Whirr. 

as blue above, were draped with white 
clouds like folds of crumpled lawn. 

Jt was altogether lovely, that afternoon, 
and it stirred up many memories of her lost 
youth in the heart of Grandmother Beaver. 

Harry grew interested as she talked of 
the olden days and their happenings, which 
she remembered better than she did the 
things of last year or last week. She told 
him of the war that came when she was a 
child, and of how, one May day whose still 
beauty was like this, a rumor came down 
from the little village of Charlottesville, 
that the “Britishers” were coming — two or 
three people who lived in the outskirts had 
caught a gleam of their crimson uniforms 
on the turnpike. 

“All the strong, brave men had gone to 
the war,” said Granny, “and there was none 
left to defend the helpless women; so the 
mothers caught up their little children and 
rushed out to the woods. They left ever’- 
thing just as it was,” said she, “doors and 































































































* 





























































. 































Heard the shoutin’ and scrouched behind the big willow. 


7i 


The King’s Whirr. 

windows wide open, and took nothing but 
what they had on, in their mortal terror o’ 
them red-coats. 

“They was dreadful havoc done in some 
of the homes that mornin’,” continued 
Granny reminiscently, “where the women 
had left their weavin’ and churnin’ and spin- 
nin’. My sister Louisy had a web o’ forty 
yards o’ the finest linen in the loom and 
some drunken soldier slashed it all over 
with his sword; and barrels o’ cider and 
home-made wine, they tapped and left to 
run loose — all they didn’t drink! I was a 
lee tie gal and I was down to the spring 
when they come, but I heard the shoutin’ 
and I scrouched behind the big willow. 
When they was a-tearin’ ’round inside o’ 
Granther’s house, an’ drinkin’, I run up the 
hill to the woods like mad, and got away.” 

Granny Beaver drew off her knitted cot- 
ton mitten and showed Harry the shrivelled 
finger of her left hand, which had grown in 
a sharp angle at the lower joint. 


72 


The King’s Whirr. 

“I fell over a log with my hand under me, 
a-runnin’ so fast, and broke that little fin- 
ger. It never growed straight agin and 
I’ve had that to remember ’em by ever sense ; 
nigh on to seventy-odd years,” chirped 
Grandmother Beaver. 

As Harry listened to these things he for- 
got “the boys,” who, probably by this time 
were running out their lines in the pond, 
and the blood kindled in his cheeks as he 
wished he had been there; a brave, strong 
man with a score or two of other good fel- 
lows to do good battle for those helpless 
women and tender children. 

And Harry was greatly surprised when 
the old mill loomed up before him, for it 
did not seem possible that he had driven 
four miles. 

Just beyond the mill there was a double 
rock-house, and here lived Aunt B^tsy 
Moon, a paralytic old woman and the only 
surviving friend of Grandmother Beaver’s 
youth. 


73 


The King’s Whirr. 

Harry witnessed the meeting between the 
two aged women with real interest, but 
when they settled into a talk of old times, of 
Hirams and Jareds, who had married Paul- 
ines and Elviras, and of Joshuas and Ab- 
ners, who were second cousins to Mary Jane 
and Jacintha somebody, poor little Harry 
grew restless (not to say uneasy), for once 
started he did not know when Granny would 
get through. 

Aunt Betsy gave him a little basket of 
early wax cherries and some cookies, and 
told him to run away out of doors and amuse 
himself. 

Harry wandered about the yard awhile 
and then down the road by a way which led 
to the old mill. Here there were horses 
tied about, with bags of grist for the mill, 
and a wagon loading up with barrels of 
flour at the door. 

The stout miller, all covered with white 
dust, helped the driver to load. 

When they were through he turned, and 


74 


The King’s Whirr. 

noticing Harry asked him if he “would like 
to go inside and see the mill?” 

Harry was glad enough to do this, for his 
thoughts by that time were with the boys, 
whom his fancy saw hauling in, with shouts 
of triumph, their prizes of trout and silver 
perch, and here he was. Oh, it was very, 
very hard that he should be deprived of all 
this sport just to please two old women ! 

But suddenly he remembered Grand- 
mother Beaver’s enjoyment of her ride and 
tried to repel this selfish regret. 

He stood outside awhile and watched the 
fore-bay and the large old-fashioned over- 
shot wheel going round — and — round, then, 
looking up above the mill door as they went 
inside, he saw some large letters which 
might once have been painted black, but 
were now so faded and washed out by many 
rains that Harry could not make them out. 

“What do those letters spell?” he asked. 

“It was ‘King’s Whirr,’ my boy, when that 
sign was first painted,” replied the miller. 


The King’s Whirr. 75 

“But what do they mean?” Harry ques- 
tioned. 

“Just the name of the mill,” he was told. 
“The site of this mill is very, very old, and 
in years gone by it paid tribute to the King. 
The people paid toll to the mill and the mill 
paid toll to King George — at least, that is 
what the country people say.” 

So Harry had learned one more interest- 
ing thing of which he had never heard, and 
besides that, he spent such a delightful 
afternoon going through the tall old build- 
ing hung with cobwebs and dusted with 
fine meal and flour, that he forgot how the 
hours were flying. 

The sun was sinking low when the boy 
remembered that Granny Beaver might be 
growing impatient, and he hurried back to 
the rock cottage. 

Granny had hobbled to the front door 
with her staff and was anxiously peering up 
and down the road. 

“I’ll get the rheumatiz in my shoulder 


76 The King’s Whirr. 

agin if Fm out arter dewfall,” she said to 
Harry when he backed around with the 
wagon. 

“Well, we’ll have you in and home in an 
hour; my horse is a fast one, you know. 
Had a good time, Granny Beaver?” 

“Yes, child, it’s raly seemed as if I was 
home agin, talkin’ ’bout old times,” and 
there was a faint sparkle in the dim eyes of 
old Mrs. Beaver. 

As Harry assisted her into the carryall, 
he heard Aunt Betsy begging Granny to 
“come agin soon ; we hain’t got much longer 
here now, Peggy,” she said, leaning forward 
to catch a final glimpse of them as they 
drove up the road. 

“Well, my son, what kind of an afternoon 
have you had?” inquired Mrs. Lewis, as he 
bounded into the house, where she was cut- 
ting the cake for supper. 

“Oh, capital, capital, mother!” and 
Harry’s face, radiant with pleasure, empha- 
sized his words. 


The King’s Whirr. 77 

“And you are not sorry you gave up the 
fishing?” 

“Not a bit! The fishing will keep and 
poor Granny won’t — much longer, I mean, 
and I’ll take her down to the mill any time 
she wishes to go.” 

And he came and stood at his mother’s 
side and tried to tell her of all he had seen 
and of what he had learned, and of how 
Granny had enjoyed the afternoon, and Mrs. 
Lewis said : 

“I will go with you some time, my dear 
boy, and we’ll make up a little party once 
in awhile, so that Granny can enjoy the 
bright summer days while they last.” 


78 


A Mountain Blossom. 


A MOUNTAIN BLOSSOM 


I N that beautiful part of Piedmont, 
Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge, 
where the range of mountains holds 
the valley in like a scalloped circle 
about a picture, there was a small frame 
house that looked cosily out from an orchard 
of apple trees. Rows of lilacs led from the 
white gate to the latticed porch and stands 
of beehives were under the peach trees by 
the fence. 

Back of the house was a trim garden, 
where early strawberries peeped from 
"bunchy green leaves and currant and goose- 
berry bushes bordered the walks. 

It was a homelike spot. Small and poor 
and plain, if one weighed its value by the 


A Mountain Blossom. 79 

rocky soil cleared around it, or judged its 
worth to others than those who called it 
“home.” 

Like the fairy castle in the Black Forest 
— hidden from all the great world without 
— this little cottage held one jewel purer 
and more precious than the big Kohinoor in 
the Queen’s crown. 

This was May bell — a little girl whose 
papa tilled the rocky fields, and whose mama 
made strawberry tarts and currant jam for 
Maybell’s dainty self. 

And Maybell — Oh, she flitted about like 
a bird ! And was brighter and sweeter than 
the roses were that month — five years ago 
— when the angels brought her there. 

Her mother named her Maybell. 

“For her eyes are as blue as the blue- 
bells in May,” she said, “and they are as 
blue as the skies!” 

But her father called her “Ladybell,” 
and sometimes “Bonnibell,” and often when 
she trudged oyer the plowed fields or down 


8o 


A Mountain Blossom. 


to the hay meadow with his warm dinner in 
a pail and Carlo trotting by her side, papa 
called her “dinner-bell.” 

All names that were lovable was Maybell 
to her parents. 

She was a cute child; full of fun and 
frolic as a fairy, but thoughtful, too, in a 
baby way, with quaint little ideas of plan- 
ning and doing things to suit herself that 
surprised her mama and delighted her papa. 

Mrs. Lane was a thrifty housewife and 
she was already training this little 
daughter to be tidy and useful, and May- 
bell was a busy body for such a midget. 
She liked nothing better than to “ep” wash 
the dishes, perched in the high chair papa 
had made her, or to “shoo” the hens from 
mama’s flower-bed. She could even hovel 
the fuzzy little chicks when the rain-clouds 
burst on Humpback, miles above her, and 
yet came down the valley so fast that May- 
bell’s short legs had often to run a race 
for shelter for themselves. 


A Mountain Blossom. 81 

She was very fond of her mama. She 
even tried to take care of her in her small 
way and helped her in many things. 

No one else lived on the small place, and 
they were too poor to keep help. The near- 
est farmhouse was miles away; yet no 
king’s palace was a happier home than the 
isolated cot with Maybell for its sunshine. 

This spring, for the first time, trouble 
touched the tiny dove-cote. Mrs. Lane was 
sick and as the summer lengthened, she 
grew feebler. 

From constant use, Maybell knew where 
everything in the tidy household was kept, 
and under her mother’s directions, her deft 
little hands performed many of the smaller 
tasks. 

“Mama is so seepy !” she would say when 
she saw her mother lie down so often, and 
when her own little feet lagged with the 
many steps, she nestled close beside on the 
trundle-bed, a picture of rosy childhood. 

Mr. Lane’s work could not stop, but he 


82 


A Mountain Blossom. 


left later each day for the fields and came 
back earlier in his anxiety. 

One morning, however, Mrs. Lane seemed 
slightly better, and Mr. Lane, coming in 
with the foamy milk pail, said: 

“Mary, the wood is out. Foster’s men 
are peeling bark to-day and I would better 
go up in the forest, I think, and bring down 
a load, if you can get on without me.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Lane, with a loving 
glance at Maybell, who was feeding Snow- 
locks. “I think we can manage — my little 
housekeeper and I.” 

Maybell — not too busy with kitty’s break- 
fast to hear — danced into the pantry, her 
eyes sparkling. 

“An’ may I wide, papa?” she begged. 
“Oh, may I wide with you, jes’ a little 
piece?” 

“What does mama say, Ladybell?” 

“Let her ride to the creek, John,” Mrs. 
Lane consented, “and leave the small bucket 
at the spring as you pass. You can bring 


A Mountain Blossom. 83 

mama some cool water when you return,” 
she said to Maybell, tucking the flossy curls 
under her sunbonnet with a loving kiss. 

Mr. Lane drove around from the stable, 
threw in his axe, swung Maybell up in the 
blue wagon, and pulled through the big 
gate with Carlo frisking after them. 

How happy Maybell was, holding on to 
the reins with one fat hand. 

And “Oh, how lovely !” was her thought 
as they came out from the grove, and down 
the red lane to the creek that sparkled in 
the sunlight like a mirror when the horses 
stopped to drink. There was another little 
girl with blue eyes and long yellow curls 
laughing up in her face when she leaned 
over. 

“Listen, papa,” she cried. “How Bailie 
‘soops’ the water froo his nose.” 

Mr. Lane waited. When the horses had 
“sooped” all the water they wanted, he put 
Maybell on the plank bridge, watched her 


84 A Mountain Blossom. 

pick her way carefully to the end and run 
off up the lane with Carlo. 

Then he cracked his long whip and 
rattled on to the woods a couple of miles 
away. 

A bark-peeler’s camp is a bustling place. 
The steady strokes of the axes and the crash- 
ing, crunching sound of falling trees, mingle 
with the jolly woodman’s song and shout 
and laughter. 

High up on the mountain side that morn- 
ing, in the lull of these mirthful noises, 
one of the men, leaning on the helve of his 
axe, listened. 

“Jim,” he said to his partner, “they’s a 
curus noise down thar a bit. I dunno ef 
it’s a panter er a child. Hear thet now! 
Git yer gun an’ come along.” 

The cries stopped — then rose again as 
the men drew nearer. Suddenly a big, 
brown dog, scenting the ground, bounded 
out from the bushes. 


A Mountain Blossom. 85 

The men hurried on, and saw a little child 
— a tiny figure in a torn pink dress, her 
face and hands sun-blistered and scratched 
— and her blue eyes drenched in tears. 

“My .papa!” she cried, shrinking from 
the rough, red-shirted men. “I wants my 
papa ! I turn to fin’ my papa !” 

“Lan’ o’ Cain!” said Jim. “An’ I thought 
’twas a varmint! Whar’d you come from, 
sis, an’ who’s yer pap?” 

But she wailed in terror, as other wood- 
choppers, with gleaming axes, gathered 
around her. 

No one knew the child — she seemed to 
have dropped from the skies, until one of the 
men looking after the dog, reflected : 

“I b’lieve that’s Lane’s dog. Isn’t he in 
the woods to-day?” 

“Yes, he is,” said Jim. “An’ I bet this 
young un’s his’n. Come erlong, honey, we’ll 
fin’ yer pap.” 

Maybell clung frantically to his brawny 
neck. Carlo had run ahead, whining and 


86 


A Mountain Blossom. 


looking back, until lie broke into a lope and 
was lost to sight. But they heard his glad 
bark farther up the Ridge, and presently 
met Lane coming down with rapid strides. 

The father’s heart gave a great throb as 
Maybell sprang to his arms. 

“Mama is seep,” she wailed. “Oh, papa, 
papa ! turn home an’ wake my mama !” 

The child’s exhausted condition, for the 
moment, stifled Lane’s greater fears. 

“Some water — quick!” he called, motion- 
ing the men back. He bathed the flushed 
face and put the cool water to Maybell’s 
quivering lips. Soon she was quieter, but 
she only reiterated between broken breaths 
that her mother was asleep and “wouldn’t 
take Maybell.” 

“For the love of life !” cried Lane, “some 
one take my horse and hasten with the doc- 
tor back to my house ! And one of you,” he 
begged, “go through the Hollow to the 
Widow Miles, and get her to come on at 


once. 


A Mountain Blossom. 87 

Clasping Maybell tightly, he was down 
the mountain in a gallop. 

He groaned as he drew near his home. 
The peaceful quiet of noonday seemed the 
stillness of death. The smell of the clover 
and the new hay, and all the indefinable 
scents that linger about a country house 
yard, oppressed him with their faint sweet- 
ness. 

The open gate and doorway were just as 
Maybell had left them and Snowlocks 
sunned herself on the mat. 

As he stepped upon the porch, the Widow 
Miles, hastening across the fields, rode 
around from the barn lot. 

They entered the house together. Mrs. 
Lane was lying limp and apparently lifeless 
close by the open fireplace. There had been 
a fire left from getting breakfast, as Lane 
remembered. One end of Mrs. Lane’s calico 
wrapper was burned in a great hole — the 
dress and the embers of the kitchen fire still 


88 


A Mountain Blossom. 


wet from Maybell’s empty water pail, which 
was on the hearth nearby. 

The same baby hands that had saved her 
life had brought a pillow and lifted her 
mother’s head upon it. 

Lane raised his wife; other neighbors 
coming in, they carried her to the little bed- 
room and were vainly using every known 
restorative, when the doctor arrived. 

Maybell had refused to be comforted or 
to leave her mother. The child, knowing 
nothing of death, seemed yet beside herself 
with terror at this strange lethargy so like 
it. 

Granny Miles coaxed her away. “Come 
now,” she said, “you will worry the good 
doctor. Come and let Granny comb your 
purty hair for mama to see.” 

Half an hour’s work of the doctor’s skill 
brought a heaving, gasping sigh, and slowly 
Mrs. Lane awoke to consciousness. Her 
eyes unclosed — and her lips spoke faintly: 
“Maybell — my baby!” 


A Mountain Blossom. 89 

Her father brought her in — the light of 
a great joy in his eyes as he knelt and 
thanked God that He had given both of his 
treasures back to him. 

Mrs. Lane’s sister arrived next day, and 
a month later Mrs. Lane, slowly convales- 
cent, was sitting on the latticed porch. The 
soft winds of Indian summer fanned her 
thin cheeks, and her grateful eyes followed 
Maybell. 

Maybell — unconscious that she was a 
neighborhood heroine — perched high up in 
the blue wagon ; her golden curls flying and 
her cheeks as plump and rosy as the round, 
red apples they were bringing in from the 
autumn harvest. 

































































































































































. 






























library 


OF CONGRESS 



0002210010S 





